


Boats Against the Current

by patentpending



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Temporary Character Death, Character(s) of Color, Internalized Homophobia, Jay Gatsby Lives, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19320427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patentpending/pseuds/patentpending
Summary: Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.It's the day Gatsby is shot.Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.It's the same day.Gatsby keeps dying, and Nick decides to save him.





	Boats Against the Current

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> \- canon character death (temporary)  
> \- canon suicide  
> \- period-typical internal homophobia and racism  
> \- vague descriptions of blood and a dead body
> 
> Me: hmm, I'm having trouble writing my angsty gays in the 1940s and my angsty gays in the 1930s.  
> My Brain: write my angsty gays in the 1920s  
> Me, sobbing: you genius

Two days.

The events of Nick Carraway’s life took an irrefutable and unavoidable turn within the mere course of forty-eight hours, drenched in the heat of August.

The swelter crashed over the city like a tsunami, soaking its inhabitants with sweat and foul temperatures.  The black pavement sizzled pitifully underneath the cruel, unrelenting sun. It was the very day in which Gatsby, temper running hotter than the boiling, broiling, burning world, demanded Daisy leave Tom and run into his arms.

She didn’t.

Of course she didn’t.

Daisy Buchanan had gold dust running through her veins, not blood.  There was a silken scarf where her backbone should’ve been.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nick realized it was his birthday.

Then Tom’s mistress was hit in the Valley of Ashes, then Nick found Gatsby, bathed in moonlight outside of the house of the woman he so believed loved him.

“I just have to see, old sport,” he murmured, eyes dark and distant.  “I just have to make sure he hasn't hurt her.”

Inside, Daisy and Tom Buchanan whispered like grand co-conspirators over plates of cold chicken.

Gatsby, that stupid, stubborn, wonderful man, refused to leave.  Nick left him alone in the moonlight.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

There is a restlessness in his stomach, a churning, miserable sort of thing.  He dresses before he can think better of it, goes into Gatsby’s home before he can stop himself.  It seems to him that something is about to change. Electricity crackles in the air; Nick can feel it, zipping over his skin, raising goosebumps.

“Nothing happened,” Gatsby says wanly, wilted over a table in the entryway. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.”

He traces the wood grain in the table over and over, an endless loop.

He tells Nick everything that night.  They poke through dusty, old rooms and dusty, old memories.  He tells Nick of Dan Cody and a girl more mystery than woman and the lies he told, just to be able to touch her hand.

“I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport,” he says, and Nick doesn't flinch.

He's used to it by now, used to the feelings he doesn't dare name.  He _can't_ dare name.

Rosy fingered dawn creeps over the horizon, and a gardener says something about draining the pool.

Gatsby wants him to stay so badly it aches at something inside of Nick, but he can't.  He doesn't trust himself here any longer.

“Twelve minutes to my train,” he says instead of the ardent cries clawing at the inside of his throat.

He is crossing the lawn when a red-hot fury takes over him.  Perhaps at Daisy for throwing away hearts as easily as jewels.  Perhaps at Gatsby for not knowing what he's worth. Perhaps at fate for throwing him into this mess.  Perhaps at himself for these feelings, these _wrong monstrosities_ brewing in his chest.

He turns around.

“They’re a rotten crowd,” Nick Carraway shouts across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

Gatsby nods at first, slowly, but then, like the sun rising over the Sound, his face breaks into that blinding grin.  He's gorgeous like that - his pink suit shining against the white marble steps and his eyes glowing with happiness.

But it’s his smile that seizes ahold of Nick.  It's always that smile.

It should be the last time he sees Gatsby alive.

It isn't.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

There’s a miserable lump in his throat, suffocating him.  Gatsby.

Gatsby is dead.

Shot by Wilson for a crime he didn't commit.

He was Nick’s friend, his best friend, his _only_ real friend.  There was something about him, something in those eyes like molten gold and smile like a the most wonderous secret, one just between the two of you.

Nick cuts those thoughts with a painful jerk of his head.

Gatsby is dead now.  Nick won't dishonor the deceased with thoughts like those.

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

 

Someone's banging on his door.

Nick blinks blearily awake, and there’s a blissful moment before the events of yesterday come back to him, a singular moment where he wonders if Gatsby will want to take tea with him today.

His memories come crashing down the next second, crushing his fantasies beneath them.

The knocking persists, and it is more of a knocking, really - light, apologetic raps, as if to make up for his lost slumber.

“I’m coming.”  His voice is rough with sleep and emotion, and he doesn’t bother to do more than wrap a ratty old robe around himself before shuffling to the door.

Someone is speaking before it's even open fully.

“Decided to sleep the day away, have you, old sport?”

Nick’s heart stops in his chest.

“Gatsby,” he stutters after a moment.  “You’re… you’re here.” His voice comes out breathy, wondrous, and the man before him gives him a queer sort of look.

“We’ve got a date!”  Gatsby says gilbly. “My gardener was telling me the pool should be drained before the fall, but I haven't made use of it all summer.”

He is almost manic, a strained smile plastered on his face and hands flitting around.  His dark hair is wound into tight curls for once, as if he had forgotten to relax it.

He keeps talking, rocking back and forth on his heels, gesturing with his hands, but his voice fades into a low rumble beyond the roaring in Nick’s ears.

“I don’t…”  Nick stammers.  “I don’t understand.”

“The pool?”  Gatsby looks at him inquisitively.  “It’s alright if you’re worn out, old sport.  I just could… use a listening ear right about now.”

Nick says nothing, mind still trying to comprehend the sheer possibility of Gatsby standing before him, and Gatsby continues, rambling on in that way of his.  A hand rubs at the back of his neck.

“I was actually hoping you’d come over earlier - not that I’m upset you didn’t! - because I have some… things I’d like to say.  Some stories to get off my chest.” He looks studiously at something over Nick’s shoulder. “I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a liar, old sport.  And I don’t know why, exactly, but I want you to… to know. Who I am.”

Nick takes one step forward, then a second.  He puts a hand on the center of Gatsby’s chest, where the bullet had gone through.  Gatsby stills entirely, looks at him with those golden hazel eyes.

“You were dead,” Nick says, helplessly.  “Wilson found out. He thought you were driving.  He shot you.”

It’s only when Gatsby’s eyes fill with alarm and his hands go around Nick’s arms that Nick realizes he is trembling.

“I’m right here, old sport,” he murmurs.  “I’m here, Nick.”

Nick collapses against his chest, and Gatsby only goes stiff for a moment before he is slowly, carefully putting his arms around the other man.

“It was just a dream,” he murmurs into Nick’s hair.  “A bad dream.”

Nick pulls back soon, embarrassed as he wipes his face.  “Don’t know what came over me,” he mutters, staring at the floor.

“Yesterday was a trial for all of us.” Gatsby squeezes his shoulders comfortingly.  “I’ll tell you what - I’ll go get the pool ready, and you can come join me just as soon as you change, alright?”

A brief glance at the clock tells Nick his train to work has long since left.

“Alright,” he says, almost smiling.

The last he sees of Gatsby is the flash of a pink suit as he strides across their conjoined lawn, back to his gilded manor.

Nick pads into his room and slowly, methodically, strips.  His hands are still shaking as he pulls on his swimming costume.  A dream, just as Gatsby said. A terrible dream.

He hears a gunshot.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

He crosses the lawn to Gatsby’s house, and finds him wilted over a table in the entryway.

He knows everything the bootlegger is going to say before he says it.

Part of him, some small part, still cries out that this is insane.  It ralls against the corruption of logic and physics and time, but a bigger part - the part that makes him a writer, the part that quietly watches the world without judgement, the part of him that’s a romantic, the part that drew him to the elusive Mr. Jay Gatsby and now draws him to Gatsby, his best friend - understands.  It understands that, for whatever reason, he is being given a second chance. Well, third. Maybe more.

When Gatsby beseeches him to stay and make use of the pool, he accepts.

The water runs down Gatsby’s sun-kissed skin, pooling in the curve of his collarbone, slicking his costume to his stomach, glistening against his arms.

A wave of something that should be nausea rises in Nick’s stomach.  He looks away. Digs his fingernails into his palms until they ache.

They are lounging at the side of the pool, drying off in the sunshine when Gatsby carefully wets his lips and looks away.  “There’s something else, old sport.”

Nick blinks.  This is new. “Something else?”

“There’s another reason I was so… desperate, I suppose, to shed James Gatz.  You see, I…” He breaks off, working his jaw. “Tom,” he says instead, and Nick starts.

“Pardon?”

“Tom is a moron.  We are in agreement on that, yes?”  He looks at Nick, so intently he shifts.

“Of course.”  Really, it goes without saying.  “Gatsby, what does this have to do with-”

“I’m getting to it.”  He jitters with restless energy, tugging on a curl of his hair.  “You see, James Gatz was… discriminated against. In the way Tom is so fond of.  My father was white, but his - my mother was…”

“Oh,” Nick says softly.  That desperation for the American dream, that optimism that, as long as the world believed he was white and rich, he could do anything - it’s as if something about the other man has shifted into focus, given context.

Nick responds the only way he feels he can at this point.  “Sé cómo se siente.”

Gatsby blinks.  “You speak Spanish?”

“My first language,” Nick says, and waits for it to sink in.

“Huh,” Gatsby says, then:  “And Daisy?”, which Nick really should have expected.

“Latino as well.”

He watches for a moment as something shifts behind Gatsby’s eyes.  In the end, everything he was chasing turned out to be a lie.

“But your-?”  Gatsby waves vaguely at his eyes.

Nick shrugs.  “Green eyes aren’t too uncommon in Mexico.”

“Oh.”  Gatsby is quiet for a long moment, then, unexpectedly, he laughs.  He laughs and laughs and laughs, clutching his stomach in mirth, and Nick can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed.

“What?”

“It’s just” - Gatsby slowly sobers, laughter fading to just a shine in his eyes  - “I thought I was alone all this time when, really, all I had to do was look.” He rests a hand over Nick’s.  “You were right there, in front of me.”

Innumerable emotions well up in Nick’s throat, silencing him.  He flounders, mouth working uselessly, but Gatsby just smiles.

“Thank you, old sport.”  He squeezes Nick’s hand. “For everything.”

Vaguely, Nick knows there is a soft thud behind him, but he doesn't register it.  Call he can focus on, all he can sense is the warmth of Gatsby's hand in his own. Golden hazel eyes shine at him, and Nick can't bring himself to look away.

Gatsby laughs, a little self-consciously, when Nick doesn't respond, and makes to stand, brushing imaginary lint off of himself.  “I'm a bit melodramatic, I know, I just-” He looks up and his eyes widen.

The loudest crack Nick has ever heard splits the air.

Gatsby falls, and his blood billows out in the pool water.

Nick is screaming.  He knows he's screaming.  Can feel it scrape at his throat.  He doesn't feel in control of his body, piloting it from afar as his eyes land on Wilson.  The man is pale, with strings of greasy hair plastered with sweat across his balding scalp.  There is something wild in his eyes.

“Myrtle,” he says, hoarsely.  “He… he killed my girl. My wife.”

“He didn't,” Nick wants to shout, but he is frozen, trembling.

“I'm sorry,” Wilson says, although it's not clear if he's addressing the dead or the living.

He puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

This time, Gatsby sees Wilson.

Just in time to shove Nick out of the way.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

It’s Gatsby.  It has to be.

Gatsby is the only common thread connecting his days to each other.  Gatsby has died four times, and Nick has lived this day four times over.  Something, someone out there refuses to let the world go on without Jay Gatsby in it.

Nick doesn’t blame them.

If he can only stop Wilson, if he can only save Gatsby’s life, then this nightmare will be over.

He convinces Gatsby to take a walk with him this time, along the Sound.  He skips rocks and doesn’t look at Gatsby, shining in the golden light. Wilson finds them.

He plays it the same way the next loop, turning just as he remembers Wilson jumped out.  He tackles Gatsby to the ground as the bullet whizzes over their heads, and he shudders at their proximity.  Wilson just aims again and fires.

Nick wakes before dawn and goes down into the Valley of Ashes.  

He finds Wilson, talks to him gently and hides his gun.  He tries to explain that Gatsby isn’t to blame, but Wilson’s eyes widen.  

“Gatsby?”  He says. “Who said anything about Gatsby?”

Nick hastily excuses himself to make them some soothing tea.  When he comes back, Wilson is gone and so is the gun.

He jumps in front of Gatsby once, wondering desperately if blood must be shed for this curse to end.  The bullet is hot and thick inside him, trailing blood in its wake. His vision goes blurry as Gatsby screams, a raw, pained noise.  A hand presses against the wound, trying to staunch the crimson tide. He loses consciousness somewhere between the span of one labored breath and the next.  Gatsby, mouth agape in a scream Nick can no longer hear, eyes brimming with tears, and face scarlet with emotion.

He's beautiful.

The last thing Nick sees is Gatsby falling backwards as the second bullet hits him.

Nick awakes the next morning and runs his hands over his side again and again, just to make sure he's still whole.  He's never fully convinced.

 

He tries again, twenty-six more times.

Twenty-six more times, Gatsby dies.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn. He goes into town and buys a pistol.

He goes to Gatsby.

He refuses politely when Gatsby asks him to swim.

“I'll just sit on the side, if that's alright with you, Gatsby,” he says with a rueful smile.  “I'm afraid I'm not much of a swimmer.”

From where it's tucked into his waistband, the gun digs into his back.

He watches as Gatsby cuts sleekly through the cool blue waters, doesn’t watch as Gatsby flashes his cajoling golden eyes and pouts, asking once more for Nick to join him.  He wouldn’t be able to resist long.

He knows he’s wrong for these feelings he forces onto Gatsby.  He knows. He just can’t stop. If he were a stronger man, perhaps he could latch onto a less addictive vice - whisky, cigarettes, gambling.  But time and time again, Gatsby has waltzed straight through Nick’s defences, past barricaded walls and a careful disillusionment, with nothing more than that smile.

Maybe that’s why Nick doesn’t hesitate when he sees the door behind Gatsby - who is toweling off - swing open.  With steady hands, he grabs the gun from his waistband.

He aims it at Wilson and fires.

Wilson falls to the ground with a sick thud, and Gatsby turns around, eyes round.  He hadn’t even seen Wilson come in. The expression freezes on his face when he sees Nick, eyes dark and smoking gun in hand, and the body of Wilson, slowly, quietly losing heat into the cool marble of Gatsby’s pool room floor.

“Nick?”  He looks scared, aureate eyes wide and confused.  He's a golden child, alone and bewildered by the world, and Nick tucks the gun away.  Tries for a smile.

“You…”  Gatsby swallows hard, clamping a hand over his mouth as his golden skin turns as ashen as that damn valley.  “You killed him.”

“He was going to kill you,” Nick says, easily.  He kicks at the gun clutched in Wil- in the body’s hand.  He's in shock, Nick thinks vaguely. He had tried to ignore it, the reality of what he had set out to do, and he thinks he's done it far too well.  His voice comes to his ears through water, and the light is milky, far away. “I… I couldn't let that happen.”

Wilson’s body lies quietly between them, crimson puddling out sedately against the glistening white marble.   Nick’s legs tremble beneath him.

He doesn't realize he's swooned - _swooned_ , like Daisy would when trying to avoid an argument - until Gatsby is beside him, cradling Nick to his chest.  He’s still damp from the pool, but Nick can’t bring himself to care about the chlorine seeping into his tartan jacket.

“Hey, hey,” Gatsby shushes him, although Nick hasn't said a word, and suddenly _Nick_ is the child, shaking and afraid in Jay’s arms.  “It's alright, old sport. None of that now.”

“I didn't- I couldn't-”  Nick shakes his head desperately, head light and chest heaving.   There's a tempest rising in his stomach, waves of emotion and agony crashing over him, so deep he's sure he'll drown any moment.  “I couldn't lose you again.”

“Again?”  Gatsby is rocking him gently, murmuring onto his hair.  “I'm right here, Nick. I'm here. I haven’t left, not at all.”

“You have.”  Trembles against him, burying his face in Gatsby’s chest and breathing in his scent - sharp and clean, like the ocean.  Fear sweeps over him in waves, this day playing over and over and over. This moment, lasting for eternity. “You have, and you’re going to again.  Just as soon as I wake up tomorrow.”

“Nick, I’m not going to leave you.”  Gatsby clutches him tighter. “I swear I won’t.”

“You will,” Nick murmurs again.  “You always do.”

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

After killing Wilson, Nick fell asleep at Gatsby’s house while Gatsby got some of Wolfsheim’s men to deal with the mess.

“I suppose I should be grateful, old sport,” Gatsby murmured quietly, once Nick had calmed down enough to be embarrassed by the way the other man held him.

“No,” Nick said, nausea rising back up in his throat.  “I’d much prefer it if you weren’t.”

He fell asleep in Gatsby’s bedroom, tears drying on a silk pillowcase.  He wakes with cotton scratching at his cheek.

He’s home, but Nick Carraway has never felt more homesick.

Nick rolls onto his back, stares at the ceiling with wide, unseeing eyes.  Gatsby lived. Gatsby _lived,_ and that wasn’t enough?  There had to be a _reason_ for all of this, this cursed heaped upon him.  If it wasn’t to save Gatsby, then why did Nick have to endure this torture same day after same day?  Sisyphus labores on, but with no knowledge of his crime.

Has he not lived his life as a kind man?  Has he not, as his father once said, reserved judgement on others?  Indeed, the only person he’s ever scrutinized so roughly so as to be critical is himself.

Whatever.

It doesn’t matter.

There’s got to be a way out of this.  There has to be.

Otherwise, Nick doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

He tries again.  Gatsby lives.

Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

He tries again.  Gatsby dies.

Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

He tries again.  Gatsby lives.

Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

Nick fails.  He fails. He fails.  He fails.

And he tries again.

Nick Carraway beats on, a boat against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

He goes to see Daisy.

“Nicky?”  She's wrapped in pink silk, rubbing at sleep-mused eyes.   “Is something the matter? It's awful early, and I was up late last night.”

“I need to talk to you.”

She shoots a scandalized look at him.  “Dressed like this? Oh, dear, you are carrying a torch for me.”

He casts a side-long look down the hall, at the maid’s retreating figure, and leans closer.  “Necesito hablarte en privado.”

She is immediately all smiles and fake laughter.  “Oh, Nicky, you silly!” Her nails dig into his arm, and she drags him into the library neither she nor Tom has ever used.

“What was that, cousin?”  She perches on a white armchair, fluffing her stylishly short blonde hair.  Her words are innocuous enough; her eyes anything but.

“A wake up call.”  Nick remains standing, resting an arm on the mantelpiece.  “I know you're the one that hit Myrtle.”

She gasps, immediately going pale.  “Nicky, how could you accuse me of something like that?  Gatsby was driving, and, really, it was that woman's own fault for running into the road like that.”

“And what about Tom?” Nick asks.

Daisy crosses her arms, petulant.  “What about him?”

He looks at her long enough for her to start shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny, then smirks, watching her temper flare up.  “Él no sabe qué tú eres.”

“Nunca la hará.”  Daisy snaps before her hand flies to her mouth.  Her eyes, darker than a white woman’s should be, fill with tears.  Shoulders shaking, she turns away, looking through billowing white curtains, out over Tom’s perfectly groomed lawn.

“I need you to leave, Nicky.”  Her voice is soft, no hint of an accent.

“Tell everyone Gatsby didn't do it.”

 _“Salir!”_  She snarls, turning on him with flashing eyes before she realizes what she said.  She wilts back into her armchair, looking up at him with tear-rimmed eyes. “Get out, please.”

“Careful, Daisy,” Nick says, clipped and terse.  “Your roots are showing.”

Daisy makes a small, pained voice, hand flying to her bleached hair.

Nick walks out, and the door trembles on its hinges long after he’s gone.

 

“I… I understand,” Gatsby stammers on the phone, “but please understand that none of this is Mrs. Buchanan's fault.  I-”

Nick carelessly presses down on the receiver, ending the call as he saunters past.

“Old sport!”  Gatsby cries, rounding on him.   “What was that about?”

“You know, you're the second person who's said that to me today.”  Nick sighs and drops onto Gatsby’s couch, flinging his feet over the side.  It's nice, like everything else in Gatsby's manor is.

“I was trying” - Gatsby stresses, lifting the receiver to his ear and redialing - “to fix this muck up.  Apparently, Daisy has been saying that _she_ was the one who hit that poor woman.”

Nick lifts his head lazily.  “Wasn't she?”

Gatsby waves him off.  “Doesn't matter.”

Nick groans and lets his head flop back down.

“Don’t you get tired of it, Gatsby?”  Maybe it’s his somewhat elusive statement, maybe it’s the way he says them - resigned and almost bitter -, or maybe it’s the look he gives Gatsby - full of longing and empty of hope.

Whatever it is, Gatsby puts the phone down.  “Tired of what, old sport?”

Nick waves a hand vaguely.  “Trying so hard to be the person everyone else thinks you are.”

Gatsby is quiet for a long moment.  “Now that you mention it, Nick,” he says, softly.  “There are a few things I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

 

They find themselves walking along the Sound as the sun sets, rich amber light spilling across the waves.  There should be a green light, somewhere in the distance, but Nick can’t see it for the sky’s brilliance. The story of Jay Gatsby, once James Gatz, is laid out before them on the rocky shore, with Nick’s own heritage bared in turn.

“I just always thought Daisy and I were… destined for each other.”  Gatsby laughs bitterly. “I suppose I sound like a fool, going on about destiny, don’t I, old sport?”

Nick takes his time to answer, bending down to snatch up a smooth, round stone.  He and Gatsby have been here… oh, he can’t even begin to remember anymore. This route is new, but the shining sunset, the swooping birds and their echoing cries, and even the placement of the best skipping stones are the same.

Somewhere around a thousand, Nick decides.  He’s lived this day about a thousand times.

“No, you don’t,” Nick says pensively, flicking his wrist and sending a stone skipping along the still waters of the Sound.  “There _is_ such a thing as destiny.  It may not be Daisy, but there’s one person out there, and…”  His voice falters, and the stone sinks beneath the waters, only the slightest rippling to ever indicate it was there.  He swallows hard. “You’re meant to be with them. Forever.”

_And forever is such a long time._

Gatsby laughs, as soft as the summer rains.  “And here I thought _I_ was the hopeless romantic, old sport.”

“You are romantic,” Nick says wryly.  “I'm just hopeless.”

He scoops another stone, warm and smooth in his palm and sends it off again, dancing lightly over the waters.  It bounces until it is out of view.

A long, low whistle escapes Gatsby’s lips as he peers over the edge of those ridiculous sunglasses.  “Pretty good at that, aren’t you, old sport?”

A wry, ironic grin flickers at the edges of Nick’s lips.  “I’ve had plenty of practice.”

A thousand days. Maybe more.

Gatsby plucks up a stone and hefts it in his hand.  It is a nugget of gold in his hand and in the late afternoon night; it splays over him as if its been filtered through a stained-glass window, and Nick thinks, in that idle author’s way of his, that he’s never seen a chapel as beautiful as the one before him.

Gatsby’s hand flies back, and the rock lands in the water with an unimpressed _plop._  He looks at his hand as if it has personally betrayed him, and Nick bites back a snort of laughter.

“Need some help there?”  Nick asks, teasing.

“No,” Gatsby responds stalwartly, because of course; he never needs help.  “I’ve got it.”

“All yours then.”  Nick makes a grand, sweeping gesture towards the sound, the city, the gold-streaked sky, and the glowing-amber waters.  It would be, if Nick had his way. Everything, everything in the world would be Gatsby’s, if that could somehow make it okay - this feeling in his chest every time he sees Jay smile.

“How kind of you, my liege,” Jay drawls sarcastically, tamping down a grin as Nick snorts with laughter.  “I assure you, however, I will prove to be a master in no time.”

The stone soars, a graceful arc over the waters.  

It sinks with no preamble.

Nick can not help it.  He breaks into raucous laughter, almost bending over under the weight of his mirth.

It takes him a moment to notice Jay’s face is shuttered closed, his arms crossed over each other.  The sight sobers him immediately.

“Come now, Gatsby,” Nick says softly, straightening.  “Don’t be cross. I’ve had much more practice, you see?  Plus, you’re, ah” - he nods at Jay’s stance - “you’re doing it wrong.”

The edge of Gatsby’s sourness ebbs away with the lapping of the water against their bare feet.  “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got to-” Nick waves a hand helplessly, unsure how to describe it.  “It’s more horizontal than that.”

Gatsby looks at him, blankly.  “Just show me, old sport.”

“Oh, um.”  Nick swallows and convinces himself the spots of color in his cheeks are invisible in the golden-amber light.  “Let me just…”

He touches Gatsby’s back, gently, almost breathless as Jay moves easily beneath him, a stone already in hand.  Nick’s fingers draw down the line of Jay’s arm, nudging him into place. “You’re not throwing it _at_ the water,” he says, voice barely trembling, “but across.”

Gatsby huffs out a frustrated breath.  “I don’t quite understand.”

Nick’s breath catches in his throat.  “Can I-” He gestures vaguely, but Gatsby nods, like he knows everything Nick is asking.

Gatsby’s shoulders are smooth under Nick’s hands.  Nick moves, slightly, and Gatsby shifts with him, gentle and oh-so yielding it makes Nick ache.  “Bend down,” Nick breaths, and Gatsby leans in, golden eyes bright. Nick nudges his chin up, the rasp of stubble against his fingers sending lightning crackling down his spine.

It’d be so easy, in times like this, to draw the other man closer, yet closer, until Nick can taste the honey in his smile.  But he won’t. He can’t. These feelings he has… he can’t hoist them so carelessly off on Gatsby, even if he won’t remember it.

Nick steps back.  If he didn't know better, he'd say he sees his own dissatisfaction mirrored in Gatsby's eyes.

“And… throw,” he says.

Gatsby tenses, drawing himself up, and he snaps, sudden as the firing of an arrow.   The stone bounces once, twice, three times, dancing out of sight until it's melded into that horizon and neither of them can see it sink.

Gatsby looks at him and smiles that wonderful smile.  “Perfect.”

“Yes,” Nick murmurs, an unidentifiable emotion swelling in his throat as he watches his golden man, alive and alight, “I suppose you’re right.”

Gatsby lives that time, and he is smiling as he bids Nick goodnight.

Nick tries to stay awake that night, but his eyes droop, and his limbs fill with sand, and he only blinks-

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.

Nick wakes before dawn.

He doesn’t roll out of bed immediately this time, doesn’t race to the Valley of Ashes to stop Wilson or storm the Buchanan household to demand things of Daisy.  He doesn’t even cross their shared lawn to see Gatsby, to hear his life story for the thousandth time over.

He lays in bed and puts a hand on his chest.  It feels like something’s trying to tear itself out.

He knows what it is.  Of course he knows what it is.

He’s always known, on some level, why he can’t help but stare at Gatsby’s smile.  Why he spends nearly every moment thinking of him. Why he finds him gorgeous beyond measure.  Why not even the sordid details of Gatsby’s past and present could prevent his heart from swelling every time he heart Gatsby laugh.

He’s in love.

Nick Carraway is in love with Jay Gatsby.

Nick pulls a pillow over his face and laughs until he cries.

 

He visits Daisy, threatens her, and then he goes to Gatsby’s.

“I… I understand,” Gatsby is stammering on the phone, “but please understand that none of this is Mrs. Buchanan's fault.  I-”

Nick presses a hand down on the Ameche.  The line clicks dead.

“Old sport!”  Gatsby exclaims, affronted.  “What on Earth do you mean by-”  He cuts himself up as he sees Nick, still leaning against the front table, looking at Gatsby with dark, serious eyes.

“Nick?”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Nick says, “that you’re doing alright.”

Gatsby stares at him for a long moment before the manic energy drains away.  He wilts against the wall, a bitter sort of irony playing on his lips. “I’m just swell,” he says hollowly.

“You’re exhausted,” Nick notes, brushing a limp curl out of Gatsby’s face.  “How long have you been dealing with this?”

“I haven’t slept, if that’s what you mean.”  Gatsby finally puts down the phone, static crackling away to nothing.  “Do you think it was for me?” He looks up, something like hope fogging his eyes.  

He's the single most hopeful person Nick has ever met, but this is beyond simply peering at the world through rose-tinted lenses; it's the most toxic sort of delusion.

Nick turns his head away, fixes his eyes on the waters of the Sound, gently lapping outside of Gatsby’s back windows.  “I told her to.”

He can’t bring himself to see the moment Gatsby’s eyes sharpen yet lose their shine.  To know he was the one who dulled Gatsby’s radiance.

“I see.”  He collapses onto the couch like his strings have been cut, cradling his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Nick says, sitting next to him.  He’s done any of this before - never told Gatsby the truth about his dearest love, never apologized for doing so, never offered a simple consolation for the twists of fate and societal pressure that fractured and pressed James Gatz into the harder, shinier, fiercer Jay Gatsby.

“It’s not your fault, Nick,” Gatsby idly plucks at a loose thread on the couch, watching it come unraveled.  “I suppose we weren’t meant to last.” He laughs, a low, bitter thing. “I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport.”

  


Nick hears Gatsby’s life story again.  He can practically deliver the entire speech verbatim by now, but he doesn’t mind hearing it again.  Not enough people have truly listened to Gatsby in his lifetime. Nick would very much like to be more than a mere statistic in this man’s life.

“...my mother was,” Gatsby stammers, “and I, as well, am, you see, Black,” he manages.

Nick just reaches over and covers Gatsby’s hand with his own.  “Gracias por decírmelo.”

It takes Gatsby a long moment, but his eyes widen.  “Latino?”

Nick nods.  That one word isn’t as important to him as the ones Gatsby didn’t say.   _What about Daisy?_  Nick hardly dares to think about what that might mean.

Gatsby smiles - a small, teasing thing.  “Keeping secrets from me, old sport?”

“Takes one to know one,” Nick fires back.

He laughs then, pure, unabashed peals of joy and relief.  “I suppose you and I are simply a matching pair.” He flips his hand over, laces his fingers through Nick’s.

Their palms press together.  It’s simple, chaste. Yet, somehow, it overwhelms Nick, filling him with sunshine.  “Always,” he murmurs. He, of all people, means it. “Even through all this mess, I’m here for you, Gatsby.”

Gatsby huffs out an exasperated breath, letting his head loll against the couch back.  “Things haven’t quite been normal since yesterday, have they?”

Nick groans, shaking his head.  “You’re telling me.”

“I mean think,” Gatsby continues, “just yesterday, it was- Oh!”  He startles, turns to Nick. “I forgot, didn’t I?”

Nick blinks slowly.  “Forgot what?”

“Yesterday!”  Gatsby says impatiently, rising to his feet and digging through a drawer in the nearby armoire.

Nick flexes his empty hand.

“It was a rather momentous day, wasn’t it, old sport?”

Nick can barely remember yesterday.  He knows the broad strokes of it, of course - the city sizzling like an oven, Daisy mowing down Myrtle, Gatsby waiting outside the Buchanan house in the moonlight.

“I’m afraid I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Gatsby,” he confesses.

“Oh, come now, Nick, It’s bad enough one of us forgot it.”  Gatsby makes a triumphant noise and holds up a small black box, lacquered and shiny.  He turns to Nick and smiles that smile. “Happy thirtieth birthday, Mr. Nick Carraway.  I meant to give it to you after we got back from the city, but, well…”

Nick is stunned speechless for several moments.  When he finally regains his tongue, all he can manage is: “I never told you when my birthday is.”

“Yes, I- I know.”  Abashment colors Gatsby’s face and forces him to look down at his shoes.  “I asked Daisy. Sorry if you didn’t want me to know, old sport, but I just figured it’s the sort of thing a man should…”  He trails off, swallows hard. “Nick, you” - his golden eyes dart up to meet Nick’s, but just as quickly shoot away - “you always do so much for me.  I guess I just wanted to let you know that… I’m grateful. That I care.”

Nick could fall in love with him right now, if he hasn’t already been falling for so long, so easily and so imperceptibly he can’t pinpoint a day or a place.

“Thank you,” Nick says, as he rises to join his golden man.  “Thank you, Gatsby.”

Gatsby’s smile doesn’t fade, but it grows softer, fonder somehow.  “Come on, then.” He pushes the box into Nick’s hands, foot tapping.  “Don’t you want to see what it is?”

“I’m going to love it, regardless,” Nick laughs, turning the box over in his hands, admiring.  “You’re the only one who remembered.”

He flips open the lid.

Nick’s eyes widen.

It’s a watch.  It’s an achingly beautiful watch - all shining golden band and sleek, dark face and faintly ticking gears.  The light glimmers off of it when he holds it up. Wondrously, he turns it over to reveal an engraving.

_To the dearest friend I ever had.  Yours always, J._

“‘J’?”  He questions, looking up at Gatsby.

“I always knew I was going to tell you,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck.  “About my past, that is. About me. I’ve lied to just about everyone in my life, old sport, but, you… I just want you to know who I am.”

“J,” Nick repeats, smiling.  “Jay Gatsby and James Gatz all in one.”

Gatsby smiles back, anxiety melting away.  “Exactly.”

“I love you,” Nick says.  He didn’t mean to, but he doesn’t take it back.  Instead, he lets the words - three syllables, eight letters, infinite meaning - hang, shimmering in the air between them.  He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until the band of the watch starts rattling. He tries to unclasp it and slide it on his wrist, but his fingers are fumbling and his eyes are fogging over and he can’t work the damn clasp-

Gatsby touches his wrist, gently.  “Let me.”

He’s quiet, eerily quiet as he easily unlatches the watch.  He takes Nick’s hand and slides the gift onto his wrist, golden fingers brushing against soft, sensitive skin.  He turns Nick’s arm over and reclaps it. His fingers rest over Nick’s pulse long after the task is over.

Nick can’t bring himself to speak.

“Did you mean it?”  Gatsby asks, hesitantly.  Staring down at his fingers on Nick’s wrist, he looks like he’s more afraid of the answer than he has any right to be.

“Of course I did.”  Nick covers Gatsby’s hand with his free one.  “Gatsby, how could I not?” He waits until those golden eyes are trained on him to continue.  “I love you.”

Gatsby shudders, turns away again.  “You can't _say_ such things like that.”

Nick, a horrid sinking feeling growing in his gut, makes to apologize, but Gatsby cuts him off.

“I’ll _believe_ them, Nick.”  His voice is rough, thick.  “No one has ever… You can’t just…”  His voice cracks, breaks, and Nick realizes he is crying.

“Gatsby!”  He fights against his instinct to wrap the other man up in his arms and hold him until the tears abide.  “I’m so, so sorry, I know I shouldn’t have! I… just can’t _help_ it.”

The sound of his voice seems to be helping, somehow, so Nick keeps blabbering on, as if he can solve this whole mess with pretty words alone.

“You’re… you’re the single most hopeful man I’ve ever met.  Do you know how incredible that is? You believe the best in everyone, even when you shouldn’t.  Of everyone I’ve ever met, you’re the only one who’s ever escaped even the slightest modicum of my scorn.”

Gatsby’s tears are slowly drying, and his head rises gradually, ponderously towards Nick.

Others may have taken it as an invitation to stop, but Nick finds that, now that his speech has begun, he simply cannot conclude until Gatsby knows exactly the depth and breadth of what Nick feels.

“And your smile!  Do you even know what you do to me with that smile?  You smile understandingly — much more than understandingly.  It’s a smile with a quality of eternal reassurance in it. I could live four or five lifetimes and never find another like it.  It faces the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrates on me with an irresistible prejudice in my favor, as I see it.  

“It’s like you understand me, just as far as I want to be understood, and believe in me as I could only pray to believe in myself.  Except for this moment, I’ve never questioned what you think of me. You’re my dearest friend in the world, Gatsby, and I can see nothing but kindness in your smile.”

“You really do love me, don’t you?”  Gatsby says, quietly. If not for the redness tinting his nose, Nick would never be able to tell he’d been crying.  Throughout Nick’s impromptu tyrade, he had wiped clean his face, and now he looked at Nick, eyes shining, although Nick can’t tell if the effect is from residual tears or emotions.

“Yes,” Nick admits, “and I know you’re in love with Daisy-”

“-not sure on that front,” Gatsby interrupts, quietly.  “The more I think about it, the more seeing her run down an innocent woman seemed to… mitigate some of my softer emotions.”

Nick huffed out an ironic laugh.  “That’ll do it.”

Gatsby quirked his lips in return.  “Quite.”

“But, I…”  Nick tugs at his sleeve.  “I know I’m not what you want.  I've made my peace with that. I know there are things about me that aren’t-”

 _“What_ about you?”  

Nick blinks.  “What?”

“What about you isn’t what I want?”

“I’m a male, for starters!”  Nick cries. “I’m not a doll like Daisy, I don’t fit in with your high-society associates, and you can never been seen in public with me!  Isn’t that enough?”

“I trust you, Nick,” he says, simply.   _“That’s_ enough.  I’ve never done that with anyone before.  You’re… you’re the only one I know will always be there for me.”  His words come slowly, as if each one is a fresh revelation he savors the truth of.  “You’re the only one who’s ever cared for me, not just my money. I can rely on you and confide in you without any fear.  I care about you. I trust you. I…” He cuts off, worrying at his bottom lip.

There is a long, long pause.

“Do you love me?”  Nick can hardly bring himself to break the silence, can hardly dare to hope.

Gatsby’s golden eyes trace the lines of his face.  “Yes,” he says, voice far away. “God help me, I think I do.”

He cracks a smile, and Nick can’t help but lift one in return, and then Gatsby is chuckling, softly, and then they’re both practically howling with laughter, although nothing is particularly hilarity-inducing.  Instead, it’s relief that propels their outburst. Pure, simple relief. Relief that the other party returns their affections; relief that, for now, at least, the nightmare is over.

Relief that neither of them has to be alone any more.

Nick takes Gatsby’s hand and doesn’t let go.  “You’re fantastic, Gatsby. Truly.”

“You know,” Gatsby says, over-casually, “you could call me Jay if you wished, old sport.”

Nick tilts his head, considering his golden man for a moment.  “Would you like that, Jay?”

“I think,” he says with a wry quirk to his lips, “I’d be quite alright with anything you called me, as long as you said it like that.”

Nick can’t help but smile in return.  “Like what?”

Jay shrugs, almost bashfully  “Like I’m something precious.”

“You are,” Nick says with far more honestly than he intends.  “You’re gold and diamonds and jewels and everything else in the damn world to me, Gatsby.”

“There you go again,” Gatsby teases, squeezing his hand.  “Too shy to call me by my name, Nick?”

“Gatsby is what I know you as,” Nick says, eventually.  “It isn’t any more or less intimate than Jay or James or Gatz.  I fell in love with Gatsby, but I would and do love Jay and James and Gatz just as tenderly.”  He takes Gatsby’s hand and squeezes.

“What’s in a name?”  Gatsby murmurs to himself.  “That which we call a rose…”

“I love you, Gatsby.”  Nick presses a kiss to his forehead.  “And I love you, Jay.” His cheek. “And I love you, James.”  His nose. “And I love you, Gatz.”

“And I love you, Nick Carraway.”  It’s Gatsby who finally draws them together, their mouths slotting in place like pieces of a puzzle, but Nick can’t begrudge him that.  

It should feel dangerous.  Instead, it feels like coming home.

Nick knows it won’t last.  He knows, even as Gatsby draws him closer, closer, and slams the bedroom door behind them, that he’ll wake up to the sound of cicadas.  Alone.

But for now, with Gatsby’s mouth burning against his and golden eyes smiling down at him, Nick can ignore all that.

After all, he has some much more pressing issues to deal with.

  


Cicadas are hissing outside of his window.  Nick wakes before dawn.

Nick’s heart sinks.  He knew it would happen.  Knew that it never lasts, that he’ll always be trapped in this damn loop, but…

He had hoped.

In his eternal foolishness, he had hoped.

He sighs, just a little, and makes to pull himself out of bed and do it all over again.  Maybe he won’t make Gatsby cry this time. The sight was devastating.

His movement is stopped by an arm tightening around his chest.

“Hm?”  A groggy, sleepy noise comes from behind him.  “Nick, what’re you doing?”

Nick’s heart stops in his chest.

“Gatsby,” he says, and waits for the small huff of confirmation, “what day is today?”

“Wednesday,” Gatsby responds after a moment, “the sixteenth.  Two days after your birthday. Why’s that?”

“No reason,” Nick says, heart glowing so fervently in his chest he’s surprised light doesn’t fill the bedroom.  “Just wondering.”

It could be confessing his feelings to Gatsby that broke the loop.  It could be kissing someone that did it. It could even be falling asleep with someone else.

Yet, somehow, Nick thinks he knows how he did it.  The way he was living, the way he carried around disgust and hate for himself, for who he loved - he couldn’t go on like that.  So he _didn't_ go on until he knew it was okay to love a great man like Gatsby.

“It’s not even dawn, Nick.”  Gatsby yawns, rubs at his sleep-crusted eyes.  “Go back to sleep.”

“Alright,” Nick says, voice miraculously not breaking.  He nestles back down on a silken pillowcase, and Gatsby’s forehead comes to rest on the nape of Nick’s neck.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Gatsby murmurs, already drifting back off.

“Okay,” Nick whispers, lacing his fingers through Gatsby’s.  “In the morning.”

Their life would be lived behind closed doors.  It would be a life of hastily stolen kisses and hands pressed almost close enough to hold and standing just far enough apart not to draw eyes.

But it would be theirs.

On the nightstand, his watch ticks on.

**Author's Note:**

> Taa-daaa! My first foray into the Great Gatsby fandom. Natsby discord, this one is for you.
> 
> If you know me from my other stuff, don't worry, I'm still working on my Sanders Sides content! This plot bunny just grabbed ahold of me and would Not Let Go until I surrendered. I actually think I'll be dipping my toes into a few other fandoms, just for fun.
> 
> If you at all enjoyed, please comment and leave kudos!
> 
> and roast me if you see a typo, cowards.


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